


back from the grave

by maybeans



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Gen, and then sometimes u get sad and revive a fictional dead man, revivedbur pog, sometimes u get sad and cry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:55:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29760654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybeans/pseuds/maybeans
Summary: Ghostbur. He’s supposed to be Ghostbur. He’s supposed to be dead, and he was supposed to stay dead.in which wilbur comes back because i have no patience nor chill
Relationships: Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson
Kudos: 40





	back from the grave

**Author's Note:**

> ignore the date in there lmao i thought homeboy was gonna come back on the 16th

The most cliche way to write someone’s death is to say “the world went dark.” Whether it be a temporary death–the release of sleep, a loss of consciousness due to illness of injury, or a permanent one, it’s written all the time. There was something, and now there is nothing. Someone was here, and now they are not. 

What isn’t written so much is the reverse. There was nothing, and then there was something. Someone was not here, and now they are. This is because people aren’t supposed to come back from the dead. Once there is nothing, it remains so. 

Unless, of course, someone is successful in cheating death. It’s incredibly rare, but entirely possible.

On February 16, for someone who was once someone, the world went  _ light _ .

***

An intense and urgent ache in Wilbur’s lungs forces him to take a loud and stuttering gasp for air. His eyes fly open, vision wavering uncertainly until settling on a rough stone ceiling. Sense returns slowly, his fingers tingling and twitching until he can feel the cool draft in the air on every inch of exposed skin.

This is…something about this shouldn’t be right. His head is foggy, and he can’t quite remember why it isn’t right, but there’s something he needs to remember. He takes another inhale–something about the action is so _foreign_ –and tries to pull together the pieces of his scrambled mind.

“Will?”

The fog clears out, ever so slightly. Wilbur pushes himself up to a sitting position, distantly aware of how solid and tangible the ground feels beneath him, before turning towards the sound of the voice.

On the other side of the room–Wilbur realizes he’s in a stronghold–Phil is staring at him with a face full of hope and apprehension. He doesn’t move from his spot kneeling on the ground, as if waiting for Wilbur to give him some sort of cue.

Maybe there’s something about him that looked off. He lifts a hand, slowly turning it over as he examines it. There’s something missing, what is he missing–

A jolt of adrenaline slams through Wilbur’s body as his hand seemingly shifts right in front of him, turning a pale, translucent grey as the glove disappears and the brown overcoat is replaced by a yellow sleeve.

Ghostbur. He’s supposed to be Ghostbur. He’s supposed to be dead, and he was supposed to  _ stay  _ dead. 

Wilbur doesn’t have time to even open his mouth before the rest of his memories slam full force against the front of his skull. The war for independence, sparring as kids, pressing the button, waking up as Ghostbur, Manburg, brewing potions, pressing the button, Tommy losing the duel, losing the election,  _ pressing the button– _

A strangled gasp tears its way out of his throat. Across the room, Phil has stood up and his mouth is moving, but Wilbur can’t hear anything outside the blood rushing in his ears. His hands are trembling uncontrollably and oh god, oh god, he fucked it all up, he fucked everyone over and then he  _ forgot _ .

He stumbles to his feet, frantically turning until he locates the doorway to his right. He’s already through it before his mind even knows he’s running, feet nearly stumbling over cracks and silverfish on the way out of the room. The sound of feet hitting the stone behind him and a voice calling out his name are barely audible over his own panicked gasps. He nearly stumbles into a wall as he rounds a corner, and the voice behind him is supposed to be Phil he thinks, but it sounds like Schlatt laughing and the rest of a lost nation mocking him and Tommy. A silverfish nabs at his ankle, but Wilbur swears he can feel an arrow pierce through him from behind. Out, out, he has to get  _ out _ , he doesn’t fucking know how to but he has to get out  _ now _ ; the torches’ flames are spreading and it’s L’Manburg’s walls burning down as everyone turns away as the world falls apart and he’s running, running, running from everything that shouldn’t matter because he was gone, he was  _ gone _ but now he’s back and he’s drowning more than ever before–

The stone beneath Wilbur’s feet turns to snow, and the cool draft of the stronghold turns to freezing wind that rips past him, slapping his face and violently tousling his hair. He nearly slips on a patch of ice, but rights himself and is lost in the trees long before the frantic call of a father pours out of the stronghold entrance.

***

There’s no end destination in Wilbur’s head as he sprints through the trees, snow flying up from where his faded black boots slam into the ground. His breath is coming out in rapid pants, the puffs visible in the winter air. Thoughts and memories, fragments of moments flit through his head, each one there just long enough for Wilbur to remember, but leaving no opportunity for recovery before another one takes its place.

His foot catches a rock, sending him forcefully to the ground before he can catch himself. The thin layer of snow on the ground cushions his fall, and he shoves himself back to his feet, his bare fingers stinging from the cold of the snow.

_ The snow _ . He...he can’t touch the snow. He’ll melt. A brief moment of confusion passes through his head, as if there’s something wrong with the thought, but it’s quickly overtaken by a sheer sense of panic. He–this isn’t how he wants it to be. It’s cold and painful and so very slow. Nothing like the first time  _ (burning, piercing pain) _ . No,  _ this isn’t what he wants. _

Wilbur spins around. He came from somewhere, right? He could go back–no,  _ no _ , he couldn’t go back there. He turns back around, stumbling in the direction he’d been heading. He couldn’t go back to L’Manburg. They would kill him and any hope for it would be lost. But it already is, isn’t it? It’s gone, and he shouldn’t be here, and,  _ shit– _

Snowflakes whip around him mercilessly, too fast to avoid. He’s so heavy, too, and his feet were on the ground for some reason, and the snowflakes were cold, so fucking cold on his skin. Raw panic gripped him from the inside, and he staggered towards the nearest tree. The bark beneath his shaking hand was smooth, but Wilbur swore he could feel a notch under his hand.

The last thing he hears is his own voice. 

_ “It was never meant to be.” _

His knees buckle and his body slumps to the ground before the button can be pressed.

***

The snow has calmed down by the time Phil pauses to light a lantern. It would have been more helpful earlier, but every time he’d started to slow he thought he’d caught a glimpse of a brown trench coat ahead of him, and he’d pushed forward with even more fervor than before. It was always a branch, or a leaf, or nothing at all.

A lantern will help, though, Phil thinks as he hurries through the forest. It has to help, because he has to find Wilbur. It has to help, because Phil can’t go back just to look Tommy in the eye and tell him he’d lost his brother again. 

Phil adjusts his hat. Failure is not an option here.

The snow falls gently now, fat, wet flakes barely getting the chance to brush his skin as he jogs through the woods, repeatedly bringing the lantern in an arc around him in hopes of catching a glimpse,  _ anything _ , of the boy.

“Wilbur?”

The forest remains painfully silent.

Phil brings the lantern in another arc, pausing and rapidly swinging the light source back to the right, where a half-concealed trail of footprints is visible.

Phil’s heart leaps into his throat, hope and panic both fueling another spike of adrenaline. He takes off in pursuit of the trail.

“Wilbur? Wilbur!” Phil calls, more desperate this time. No reply, and the irrational fear that the trail will simply disappear pounds at the back of his skull. The footsteps don’t let up, however, mostly continuing in a straight line.

Phil’s not sure how long he’s been following the trail, but it isn’t too long until he spots a rock in the middle, followed by a depression clearly caused by a body falling into the snow. Phil quickly scans for blood, shoulders sagging with a relieved sigh when he doesn’t spot any. 

The footprints that follow barely continue forward before backtracking, then turning back forward. Phil squints at them, trying to make sense of the brief change of direction, before something just barely within the lantern’s reach catches his eye.

The corner of a brown trench coat.

Phil raises the lantern, his heart slamming against his chest the moment he does. Wilbur is sprawled on the ground under one of the spruces, half-curled on his side. 

The lantern hits the snow like a stone dropped in water. Phil drops to his knees next to Wilbur’s prone form, fingers immediately flying to the pulse point on his neck. The moment he feels it throb, he lets out a shaky exhale and nearly slumps over in relief. 

He quickly scans the surrounding snow for any blood or sign of a struggle–nothing. He cards a hand through Wilbur’s hair. No signs of head trauma. He slides a hand under Wilbur’s neck, turning him into his side. A quick scan of the rest of the body reveals no signs of injury, and it thankfully hasn’t been long for frostbite or severe hypothermia to set in. 

Phil looks down at his son–his pale, shivering, probably-scared-out-of-his-wits, and wonderfully  _ alive _ son. He leans down, pressing his forehead to Wilbur’s for the briefest moment, before rising to his feet with the boy in his arms.


End file.
